


Embracing Change 🏳️🥺

by murderlight



Series: Exposure Therapy 🖐💕 [4]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Affection, Fluff, Hugs, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Misunderstandings, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:47:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27079813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murderlight/pseuds/murderlight
Summary: Ichigo's plan starts to work a little too well as Grimmjow begins to allow others in.Faced with his own burgeoning feelings over their 'lessons,' Ichigo inadvertently hits a landmine when the future is called into question and he's forced to ask himself: just whereexactlyis this all heading?
Relationships: Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Kurosaki Ichigo
Series: Exposure Therapy 🖐💕 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1903105
Comments: 162
Kudos: 1118





	Embracing Change 🏳️🥺

**Author's Note:**

> The final part! This one is a little special, because [the art relating to this part was LivRay25's gift to me](https://twitter.com/LivRay25/status/1299460073337610241?s=20), and the same thing that inspired me to create Exposure Therapy as a series. 💜

For all Ichigo’s quiet resolve to steal Grimmjow away from the Urahara Shop, he wasn’t actually expecting how quickly and how well the Kurosaki household would adapt to their new guest.

It shouldn’t have surprised him, really. Rukia had secured herself a place in the home with only a theatrical handkerchief and a sob story about having nowhere to go. Grimmjow was somewhat known to the family, so why wouldn’t they accept him? Apart from the bloodthirsty reputation, former status as an enemy soldier and more recently his violence at the shop, anyway. Somehow it was entirely different, and Ichigo had fully expected to have to run interference for a while. Instead, he found himself watching each interaction with a growing sense of bewilderment.

“More eggs?” Yuzu asked brightly at the table the next morning, doing her usual circuit with the breakfast leftovers, checking if anyone wanted seconds. Beside Ichigo, Grimmjow looked up with chopsticks poised ready to shovel their next load into his mouth. There was a pink seam from the pillow still imprinted down the side of his face, and his hair was smushed flat on one side. Not a morning person, Ichigo thought fondly, taking a big concealing gulp of his juice to hide his smile.

“Uh,” Grimmjow said intelligently, staring down at his plate. He’d demolished almost everything except the small bowl of cut fruit. Taking the initiative with no way to receive an answer, Yuzu dumped a huge spoonful of scrambled eggs in the centre of his plate, then dropped a new piece of buttered toast beside it. Grimmjow’s eyes lit up.

“You’re welcome,” Yuzu chirped as the food began to disappear before her eyes. At the head of the table, Isshin was smiling proudly.

“Nobody cooks like our Yuzu-chan,” he informed Grimmjow, who gave a kind of affirmative nod around his next mouthful. “If you’d like to announce your intention to marry her, I’ll accept nothing less than a five year courtship before entertaining even the notion of giving her away.”

Ichigo accidentally gargled his juice. Grimmjow as his brother in-law? The thought was surprisingly abhorrent. Across from him, Karin gave a mean smile and kicked his ankle.

“Arrancar are sterile,” Grimmjow said around a mouthful of toast, yanking his head back to tear the bread with sharp teeth. The motion was far too animalistic in nature for Ichigo to pretend he was sitting next to a completely civilised and boring human. “Isn’t the point of human marriage to make more of you?”

“True,” Isshin said thoughtfully. “That does immediately rule you out.” Ferally annoyed, Karin kicked him too. “Ouch! Eat your grapefruit, demon spawn, or I’ll sell you for one healthy goat.”

“Marriage isn’t about having babies, you dated old man.”

“You’re sixteen,” Ichigo reminded Karin, deflecting the blueberry she launched toward him. “The only thing you’re getting married to in the near future is your revision textbooks.” All that earned him was a stuck-out tongue. Beside him, Grimmjow jumped slightly and looked under the table with a frown. Karin went red.

“Sorry, I was aiming for Ichi-nii.”

“Your aim is shit,” Grimmjow told her. “If that had actually hurt I’d return fire, but you’d end up painting the wall.” Unsurprisingly, Karin put her feet away after that.

“Well, I don’t want to marry anyone,” Yuzu interjected from the kitchen, slurping cereal from where she stood at the bench. For some unfathomable reason she preferred standing and eating cereal like a bachelor even after cooking a full breakfast. There was milk on her chin. “I’m going to become a television chef and travel the world. I’ll have a man in every country.”

Ichigo and Isshin choked as one. Orange juice sprayed straight out of Ichigo’s left nostril, getting some of it on Grimmjow’s hand. Karin just cackled at them all and air-fived her sister. Yuzu, completely unbothered by the reaction she got, tipped her bowl and gulped the last of her cereal milk down. Looking between them both, Grimmjow lifted a hand each and slapped father and son on the back with a firm, decisive impact that almost knocked Ichigo’s eyeballs out of his skull.

Breakfast really was a battlefield, Ichigo decided, mopping his face with his paper napkin. He stared blankly down at his plate. While he’d been distracted Grimmjow had stolen his last piece of toast.

“You carb-loading asshole!”

“Quick and the dead, Kurosaki.”

Yeah, Grimmjow was fitting right in with miraculous ease.  
  


* * *

  
It wasn’t just things like conversation over breakfast, either. He took literally everything that Ichigo considered weird about his family totally in his stride. Nothing he’d experienced fazed him: not Isshin’s fraying heart print pyjama pants, Karin singing Romanian meme songs at the top of her lungs while washing up, not even the way Yuzu triple-checked all the dishes were perfectly clean with a flashlight before putting them away. It was relatively mundane weirdness, but there was no doubting his family wasn’t exactly polite when they had company. However, Grimmjow seemed more curious than cornered by them. Because they didn’t bother him? Because they didn’t care if he watched what they were doing?

Ichigo wasn’t completely sure, but it was giving him a lot to think about.

“What are you doing,” Grimmjow asked mistrustfully a few hours later, squinting at Karin and Yuzu. They were standing in the doorway of Ichigo’s room with a plastic container of what looked like some kind of witch’s brew. Their faces were lit up in hopeful entreaty. From the bed, Ichigo stopped scrolling his phone and groaned.

“No,” he said emphatically, waving them off. “We’re having a really nice day doing nothing in my room. Go away.” From the futon, Grimmjow was half-propped up against the desk, poring over the old manga Ichigo had unearthed from the bottom of his wardrobe. He was already several volumes into a series and as silent as the tomb while he read. It was strangely comfortable to sit in the room with him in silence, just doing nothing in particular. But of course Karin and Yuzu were on school break, which meant mischief for the rest of the family.

“We made a really good one this time!” Karin insisted, holding out the tub of goo. It was a sludgy-looking dark green colour. “Come on, Ichi-nii. Don’t you want to be beautiful?”

“No! I’m happy being ugly.” Grimmjow levelled him a bizarrely confused look and snapped his manga shut. “Stop making facial masks off the internet. Get Dad to be your test subject.”

“His stupid beardy stubble is too annoying to paint over,” Yuzu sighed. “It took forever to wash out last time. C’mon Ichi-nii, Grimmjow-san! We’ll level up your skin until—until your enemies are too entranced by your beauty to fight back!” She beamed at Karin, seeking validation for her sales pitch. Karin was busy eyeballing Grimmjow.

“If you can let me paint on you for fifteen minutes, you’re probably a certified safe member of society, you know.” She held out the tub and shook it invitingly. “We can rub it in Urahara’s stupid face. Metaphorically. I’m not letting him have our secret recipe.” When Grimmjow just stared at her in confusion, she added, “Or are you a coward like Ichi-nii?”

Grimmjow rolled up to his feet so fast Ichigo barely had time to be offended. The competitive asshole, was that really going to work on him?! But rather than taunt him, Grimmjow approached his sisters until he loomed over Karin, who cautiously shrank a little. Ichigo couldn’t see Grimmjow’s face, but his stomach tightened in alarm.

“Your brother’s no coward.” Each word was succinct. “He’s been fighting assholes bigger and stronger than him for years and winning. Even against me, when he was fifteen fuckin’ years old.” Grimmjow turned slightly, just enough to give Ichigo a narrowed blue glance. “Coward is the last word I’d use to describe him. You don’t know how lucky you are.”

Ichigo experienced a confusing mix of emotions as his words sank in. First he was mostly relieved that Grimmjow wasn’t actually threatening his sisters, but once that concern settled…he was a little overwhelmed. Grimmjow was defending him? Offended on his behalf? Sure, it was an overreaction and Karin was just being a little gremlin, but shit. It felt really nice to know something like that could piss him off. To know that his opinion of Ichigo was still so high.

It felt amazing, actually. In the doorway, Karin looked deeply chastened.

“I didn’t mean he’s an _actual_ coward,” she muttered, giving Ichigo a quick, helpless look around Grimmjow’s tense form. “I just wanted to—oh, never mind. Sorry, Ichi-nii. C’mon, Yuzu. We’ll just have to test it on each other.” Grabbing her confused sister’s hand, Karin absolutely belted it out of there and down the stairs while Yuzu protested. Left standing alone, Grimmjow’s shoulders slowly hunched.

“Did I scare her?” Grimmjow asked, shoving his hands in the pockets of his sweats. He’d showered and changed into a different hoodie from Ichigo’s array of casual clothes, though he hadn’t wanted to relinquish the cardigan at all. Even in a big blue hoodie and black sweats he looked pretty intimidating. “Wasn’t trying to scare her.”

“She’s just feeling sorry for herself,” Ichigo replied, getting up from the bed. “I’ll talk to her in a second, but first there’s something I gotta do.”

“Like what?” Grimmjow asked, turning fully to face him. It was perfect timing to catch Ichigo’s weight against his chest in a full-armed, affectionate, face-in-the-neck snuggling hug of doom. As usual, his first instinct was to recoil but there was nowhere to go. “Ugh, fuck. Why are you happy?”

“I just am.” Grimmjow’s neck was kind of warm and smooth. Ichigo burrowed his face deeper into it, his cheek cushioned by the fold of his turned down hood. “Quit pretending you don’t like it when I do this.”

“I’m getting used to it.” Ichigo felt the pressure of arms cross over his back, hands splayed over his ribs and around his side. “So you’re not pissed? ‘Cause I can go whenever.”

“I am the opposite of pissed, and you’re staying right here with me. I’m not letting Karin paint my face with dubious concoctions alone.” A thought occurred to Ichigo, drawing his head out of its warm nest. Grimmjow looked surprisingly comfortable at their close face proximity, information that he was going to file away for later. “I want to see Yuzu’s face when she starts to actually see what you look like. That mud mask thing’s gonna show her.”

“Great.” Grimmjow didn’t sound enthused by the information, but he looked a little curiously at Ichigo, his gaze roving over his upturned face. They were only a few inches apart. “What’d you mean before about being ugly? You’re not.”

Uh-oh. Ichigo felt the heat rising sharply in his face and knew he’d just turned an extremely obvious shade of bright red. Shit. Trying desperately to downplay his reaction to Grimmjow’s words, he pulled back one hand to ruffle up his blue hair as a distraction.

“Well, neither are you,” Ichigo said lamely, glancing out the door in case anyone was going to come running back in and see them. “Just in case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t.” Grimmjow bit his scruffing hand right on the wrist, quick and meaningful. “That feels nice, but don’t fuck up my hair. C’mon, lets see if I can tolerate your creepy sisters painting shit on me. I’m gonna blow Karin’s mind.” Releasing Ichigo so suddenly he actually felt a little cold, Grimmjow turned nonchalantly and walked out of the room, leaving him standing there feeling somewhere between bereft and elated.

Grimmjow thought he was brave and handsome?

_Grimmjow_ did?

Maybe those hadn’t been his exact words, but it was absolutely how Ichigo intended to take the sentiment. Pushing his chest out a little and straightening his hair, he quickly followed his path downstairs to find out whether or not this latest batch of internet facial mud was going to give him hives again.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Karin and Yuzu were over the moon with their sudden participation, setting up the dining table chairs so they faced outwards and readying their little brushes. Grimmjow and Karin had a brief moment of awkwardness right up until—of all things—he snapped the elastic on her ponytail, which she retaliated by yanking his hoodie drawstring until they were completely uneven. They seemed to be cool after that, and Ichigo watched from his seat beside Grimmjow as Karin started painting the first cold strokes of hopefully non-toxic mixture across the curve of his cheekbones.

“Shit’s cold,” was all Grimmjow said. His hands were stuck under his thighs like he was worried he’d lash out instinctively. “What’s this supposed to do to me?”

“Make you beautiful,” Karin said absently, watching Yuzu digging in the makeup kit for something. She came up with two stretchy bands to hold their hair back but she was too late; Karin had half of Grimmjow’s face done by then. Yuzu’s mouth dropped open.

“Yikes! That’s a whole face right there! Oh my gosh, keep going, get really close to his eyes and mouth!”

“Don’t paint my estigma,” Grimmjow warned, shifting uncomfortably. “You get that close to my eyes and I’ll feed you that stick in your hand.” He looked like he was preparing for a black ops mission with the artistic streaks of wet greenish mud on his face. “It smells weird.”

“It’ll do that,” Ichigo said agreeably, sticking his headband on. He flipped Grimmjow off at his amused glance. “I’m not getting mud in my hair, unlike you.”

“Oh, I have a clip for that,” Yuzu said, finding a handful of pink glitter butterfly clasps. “Ichi-nii, can you put them on him for me? Clay in the hair is the worst.”

“I sure can.”

“Fuck off with those,” Grimmjow said in alarm, staring like Ichigo had a handful of spiders instead. “I’m already putting up with five hundred percent more shit than usual, but you put those on me and I’m gonna throw both these midgets out a window ass-first.”

“C’mon, Grimm-chan,” Ichigo teased, squeezing the clip so it opened like a little mouth. “I thought you were worried about your hair? Let me help.”

Something about the nickname stalled Grimmjow’s entire body, giving Ichigo just enough time to swipe back his bangs and secure them with the little clip at the top of his head. Both his hands shot up to feel it, but Karin cracked him on the knuckles with the paintbrush handle like a scolding schoolteacher. Amazingly, Grimmjow just snarled a little and put his hands away.

It was definitely weird to see him so restrained. What was the difference between Karin’s scrappy teenager self and Jinta? Her being a girl wouldn’t matter to someone like Grimmjow. He’d kick anyone’s ass for free. There had to be more to it than just zero threat level. He was letting her paint mystery goo on his actual face. Did Grimmjow actually like his sisters?

Seeing him staring, Grimmjow flipped him off. Ichigo had no time to respond before Yuzu grabbed his chin with a firm hand and began painting long stripes of wet mud mixture all over his skin.

It was cold, but it was also kind of calming. Shutting his eyes, Ichigo privately admitted to himself that he protested a lot when it came to his sisters’ beauty experiments, but he didn’t actually hate them. As long as nobody saw him, anyway. Grimmjow didn’t count since he was in the chair next to him.

“You look fuckin’ weird.” A fist punched Ichigo lightly in the thigh, making him smack his hand down on it like he was killing a bug. Catching it without opening his eyes, Ichigo squeezed until Grimmjow’s fingers unfolded. He didn’t let go right away. “Can’t believe I’m doing this shit. If any of you tell Kisuke or that shithead Jinta that I sat here and did this, I’ll shave your head in your sleep.”

“Please,” Karin said archly, and Ichigo opened his eyes to see her confidently thumbing Grimmjow’s head back, painting the line of his jaw without muddying the hollow mask. “Nobody would believe us, anyway. The terrifying arrancar menace, getting a facial? They talked you up like you were the actual bogeyman.”

“It is strange,” Yuzu agreed, drawing a big circle of mask around Ichigo’s eye. “Ururu-chan was the nicest about it, but she still said I shouldn’t come over if Grimmjow-san was staying that day, like he might hurt me if we crossed paths.” She frowned cutely. “Like he was rabid or something. What a load of crap.”

“Uh-oh, Yuzu said crap,” Karin laughed. She studied Grimmjow’s face intently, poking lightly where the mud was starting to pale a little. “Does it burn or anything? Itchy?”

“Feels tight,” Grimmjow replied, sounding oddly subdued.

“Cool, that’s normal. Don’t touch your face. Sit here with your mud friend Ichigo til it dries, then go wash it off in the bathroom and report back.” Packing up their gear, she took Yuzu’s brush off her and bustled off to go wash them clean upstairs. Yuzu slowly clipped the kit shut and double checked Ichigo’s face, but most of her attention was actually on Grimmjow’s mud mask. It must have looked like one of those awful invisible man horror movie floating faces, but she looked enthralled.

“So arrancar just look like people,” she mused, moving over until she could stand right in front of him. Grimmjow just blinked at her, knowing any reply wouldn’t be heard. “You have very human bone structure. But how come your right cheek isn’t painted? Is something wrong with it?”

“You’ve heard how hollows have masks, right?” Ichigo said, and Yuzu nodded dutifully. “Well, arrancar are hollows who evolved enough that a lot of their mask has broken away. Grimmjow’s fragment is still on his cheek there, which is why Karin hasn’t painted it with the clay stuff. It looks like a jawbone with sharp teeth. It’s white.” Yuzu was nodding furiously, taking the brief lesson in.

“Is it cool?”

Ichigo hesitated. Grimmjow wasn’t even looking in his direction, but in a kind of expectant way.

“Yeah, I’d say it’s pretty cool,” he said lightly. Thank fuck the mud mask covered his awkward blush that time. Belatedly he realised he was still holding Grimmjow’s hand on his lap, and that Grimmjow hadn’t made a single move to pull away from his thigh. What the hell— “Mine was cooler though.”

“Bullshit,” Grimmjow said immediately, yanking his hand away in annoyance. Ichigo grinned, dangerously close to cracking his face. “That was no arrancar mask I saw, anyway. You can’t compare them.” He looked like he had more to say, but Yuzu was gingerly reaching out with slow fingertips, aiming directly for Grimmjow’s masked cheek. “Oi, what’s she doing?”

“She probably wants to touch your mask, because she’s a little creep who likes to push boundaries,” Ichigo said meaningfully, his eyes on his sister. Yuzu set her jaw with determination and ignored him, but her trajectory slowed right down. “Yuzu, give him a break. He’s not a doll.”

“Let her do it if she wants,” Grimmjow said unexpectedly, crossing his arms over his chest. “The kid can’t hurt me.”

“You’re letting her?” Ichigo blurted incredulously, a little piqued. Everyone was reaping the rewards of his hard work! Soon Grimmjow would be touching everyone like it was nothing.

_Wasn’t that the goal?_ A smug voice whispered in the back of Ichigo’s mind.

Thrilled, exercising extra super amounts of delicacy and care, Yuzu ran her fingers down the hard ivory of the mask, finding the clench of its separated jaw pieces. She couldn’t feel things the way someone like Ichigo could, since to her senses Grimmjow was hardly part of reality at all. He was shape and substance, but not detail. His words were faded, incomprehensible noise to her ears. His form was wavy light and not much else. But Yuzu didn’t mind one bit. She petted the mask with gentle insistence, like she was reading Braille instead of the dull approximation of tooth after sharp tooth, her big brown eyes full of wonder and delight.

And Grimmjow, he simply let her, his eyes tipped to Ichigo’s reaction like it was nothing at all. There seemed to be a statement behind his quiet, weighted gaze. After a moment, a flicker of something satisfied crossed his face and he turned away. Ichigo felt inexplicably like a conversation had just occurred, and he didn’t quite know what it had been about.

They sat together in companionable silence to wait out their time limit, interrupted only once by Isshin coming in from the clinic, spotting the two of them, and without missing a beat doing a complete one-eighty and returning to the clinic. Ichigo couldn’t figure out if it was because of how they looked or because Isshin was scared he’d be next.

Grimmjow seemed oddly contemplative in his silence. Almost meditative. It wasn’t beyond the scope of belief to think he wasn’t exactly a brash or loud person at all, unless he was squaring off against someone. There wasn’t any fidgeting or complaining, which actually reined Ichigo in from doing his own fair share of it.

“Hey, do you think it’s weird that five years ago we were fighting to the death, and now we’re sitting here inside my house with matching mud masks while you borrow all my clothes?” Ichigo asked at random, wanting to break the silence a little. Grimmjow snorted softly.

“It’s all that’s been on my mind since I got here. Just can’t figure out if I’ve gone completely soft or I was always like this.”

“What do you mean?” Ichigo asked curiously, but Grimmjow didn’t seem inclined to explain. There was an inexplicable air of melancholy around him all of a sudden. Was he sorry he’d come? Had he discovered something about himself that he didn’t like? Ichigo wholeheartedly disagreed that his behaviour was in any way weak. Trusting, maybe, and comfortable for it because nobody there was an enemy or a threat, but neither Grimmjow’s claws or his wit had been dulled.

The question followed Ichigo later into the bathroom, where they washed the mess off their faces in front of the mirror. Grimmjow didn’t speak at all, not even when Ichigo prodded him to sit on the edge of the bath, tipping his head back so he could drag a steaming hot washcloth across his face, removing the very last of the clay from the parts he’d missed. Through the cloth, right at the end Grimmjow seemed to tilt his cheek towards Ichigo’s waiting palm before catching himself. Ichigo didn’t react—at least, he tried not to. He had a lurching, helpless warmth in his chest that he couldn’t do anything about.

Not wanting to let the silence turn strange, Ichigo decided to take matters into his own hands. Sorta. Before Grimmjow could react, Ichigo took one of his hands and slapped it to his own cheek.

“So? Is my skin soft now?” Ichigo asked, holding it in place as Grimmjow’s eyes slowly widened. “Sometimes these things work and sometimes they don’t.”

“It—I don’t fuckin’ know,” Grimmjow said, unsettled. He tried to pull his hand away from Ichigo’s cheek. “I had different hands last time you shoved your face on them.”

“So change them.”

“I’ll take your eye out with my claws if I do.” Rolling his perfectly intact eyes, Ichigo didn’t push any harder and let go. Grimmjow snatched his hand back like he’d been burned, his fingers curling in on themselves. “Don’t make me touch you, asshole.”

“Why?” Ichigo touched his own cheek experimentally. Kinda firm, kinda smooth, a little damp from washing his face. “Am I gross?” A sudden thought occurred to him. “Is my face the whole problem?” Clapping both hands to his cheeks with a smack, he felt all around his skin. His complexion was perfectly clear! Sure, he had a couple of small freckles and Karin once told him his nose was too narrow, but there wasn’t anything wrong with it. Was there?

“Don’t have a meltdown,” Grimmjow muttered, standing back up. “Your head’s fine. I’m just thinking about shit now. You’re getting me all used to this touching is what we agreed, but I don’t think I want it anymore.” Planting his hands on the bathroom sink, he frowned moodily at his own reflection. Maybe a little morosely. “Don’t go getting me used to things I can’t have. All that touching and hugging and—” he pulled at the hoodie he was wearing, “—these clothes, that soft bed, the dumbass sisters, none of this shit’s mine to keep. Everything’s borrowed from your fuckin’ life.”

With each word he spoke Grimmjow advanced on Ichigo. It wasn’t exactly threatening, but Ichigo had to back up through the open bathroom door if he didn’t want to be steamrolled. Confused beyond all reason, he tried to wrap his head around Grimmjow’s actual meaning.

“You’re angry that you’re enjoying yourself because you think it’s temporary?” Ichigo sounded out, his brow knitting in confusion. “It’s not temporary if you don’t want it to be.”

“I’m not here to be your pet,” Grimmjow scowled. “I’m talking about walking out of here knowing I actually don’t hate being around people. Or that I like all the touching and shit, and I’m never gonna be able to do it again because nobody except _you_ can fucking stand me.” The sheer condemnation in the word bordered on revulsion, and it surprised Ichigo so much that he couldn’t think of a single thing to say for a moment. It gave Grimmjow the opportunity to brush past him and into the bedroom. The door slammed shut behind him like a crack of thunder.

Standing speechless in the hallway, feeling dumb in his socks and sweats, Ichigo felt a belated rush of bruised feelings that he didn’t know what to do with. How the hell had he managed to ruin it when he hadn’t even done anything? Rubbing a hand through his hair, feeling unwelcome and unsettled, Ichigo walked back downstairs in confounded silence.

Was he not good enough? Grimmjow’s last and only choice? Jeez, maybe the future did look bleak to him in that case. Ichigo had just helped him figure out he liked physical affection and being around other people, right in time for Grimmjow to realise nobody liked him enough to ever do it again.

Except that was bullshit. Ichigo liked him—a lot. But what did that matter? Who the hell wanted to settle for the only option around?

“Washed your face, I see,” Isshin said agreeably as Ichigo made his way into the living room, not even really watching where he was going. The girls were probably still upstairs in their room. Hopefully Karin hadn’t heard Grimmjow talking. “Ichigo?”

“Oh, sorry,” Ichigo said, jolting himself out of his thoughts. “Yeah, washed it off. No allergies this time. What are you doing?”

“Finishing up some notes in front of the TV.” Sure enough, he had a sheaf of paper next to him. He was scribbling illegible things across the bottom of a report, wearing his narrow reading glasses. “It’s been a quiet day for the clinic so I closed up early. My desk chair is squeaking again and it’s driving me insane.”

“Maybe stop being cheap and buy a new one.”

“A wise suggestion I have never in my life considered!” Isshin smiled at his notes like he was hilarious. “Who slammed the door upstairs? I hope Yuzu and Karin aren’t fighting over makeup recipes again.”

“It was Grimmjow,” Ichigo sighed, throwing himself on the couch a little further down. “I guess he’s getting changed so he can leave.”

“That was fast.”

“Yeah.” Floundering for a moment, knowing he shouldn’t really ask, Ichigo tucked his legs up onto the couch and leaned on his knees. “Hey Dad, serious question: do I suck? As a person, I mean. Am I…not that great?”

Isshin blinked. “What?”

“Like if you could have a choice of different people to be friends with, or have around you and stuff, you probably wouldn’t pick me, right?”

“Ichigo, you’re my only son and I would die for you. You’re also so much like me that it’s hard to talk to you sometimes.” Plucking his glasses off his nose, Isshin folded them and put them in his coat pocket. Turning to face Ichigo more fully, he gave a considering sort of frown. “The only time I have ever worried what someone else thought of me was when your mother yelled in my face for calling Ishida Ryuuken a desperate inbred nerd. Which to this day I embrace as fact and I’m not sorry. But are you a great person or not? Who knows.” The refusal to answer was almost an insult until Isshin leaned over, pointing his pen directly at Ichigo’s nose. “My question is why does Grimmjow’s estimation of you matter so much? You’ve never given a damn what anybody thought of you before.”

“Well,” Ichigo started to explain, then stopped. What was he going to do, explain the past few days to his father? How had he even guessed it was about Grimmjow, anyway? From the door slam? It occurred to him then that he didn’t really have any big mystery to solve, now that Isshin had asked so bluntly. He’d had an answer to that question since yesterday, before Jinta had slammed open the door of the house. It was a superficial, tiny little answer, but it was getting bigger by the minute.

Why did Grimmjow’s opinion matter?

Because Grimmjow mattered. Because Ichigo wasn’t just teaching him about affection and touching, he was in some aspects experiencing it for the first time himself. And he liked it, he liked all of it. Stupid face masks and warm hugs and holding somebody’s—holding Grimmjow’s—hand like it was easy. Sitting in companionable silence doing nothing much at all, being able to reach out and find someone right there beside him. It had hit him so fast that in some ways he was feeling the same as Grimmjow was.

Because once Grimmjow left, how was he going to feel that again?

It was impossible, because—

“I’m going to assume by your silence that you’re having an epiphany of some sort,” Isshin sighed, getting to his feet. His kneecaps cracked like gunshots as he straightened. “Well, I’m glad I could help. If I haven’t helped, tough luck. I never studied psychology.” Grabbing his papers together, he wandered back towards the clinic door. Probably filing them, Ichigo thought as the door snapped shut with a quiet click. His mind was reeling, but his chest ached.

What a shitty time to realise he liked someone. Worse, he couldn’t really figure out what to do about it. Grimmjow had practically said he didn’t want him. Maybe he’d only seen Ichigo as a kind of trusted mentor? No, that was too weird to think about. Besides, Grimmjow had enjoyed almost everything, not just tolerated it.

“I don’t fucking know,” Ichigo groaned, getting up and heading into the kitchen. Maybe the inside of the fridge would have some answers for him. Stupid brain wasn’t capable of anything except feeling sorry for itself.

The inside of the fridge did not have answers, but it did have a small bowl of blueberries left from breakfast. Ichigo ate a few with mechanical motions, feeling the cold air chill his cheeks while he stared into the interior light. There was nothing for it; he had to go upstairs and talk to Grimmjow before he left. The burning cluster of reiatsu upstairs said he hadn’t escaped yet, or at least he’d realised his sword was in the umbrella stand by the front door.

Ichigo was still procrastinating in front of the fridge when an agile rumble of feet descended the stairs. He had an instant’s view of Grimmjow’s socks before he lost all nerve and whipped his head back to gape into the fridge. He hadn’t rehearsed anything to say yet! He didn’t even know what _to_ say!

“Uh, I think Yuzu might have put your clothes in the laundry, if you want them back,” Ichigo said to the refrigerator, tapping his finger on the light button before the door alarm went off. The eggs seemed to laugh at him from their shelf. He totally _was_ a coward. “But I was thinking, if you want to stay for a bit longer it doesn’t have to be in my room. The futon can go out here. Like, there’s options and stuff.”

“Not kicking me out?” The words were gruffer than Grimmjow had sounded in a while. Ichigo shrugged and closed the fridge door. He couldn’t say what he wanted if he turned around, so for a moment he simply didn’t. He didn’t want Grimmjow to see the expression on his face.

“It’s not a crime to not like me. You know, though, don’t act like there’s nobody else out there who’ll figure out the same things I did about you. If you don’t want to go back to Urahara’s, you can still stay here.” He licked his lips, barely starting to turn. “So yeah, I guess we could—”

It was the brush of warmth across his sides that was his first clue: two hands, slipping beneath his arms from behind to graze his ribs. Ichigo gaped down at them uncomprehendingly as they circled his chest. A warm wall pressed against his back to match. Ichigo had a sudden and horrifying instinct that maybe Grimmjow was about to suplex him into the ground.

“Is something wrong? Grimm— _hurkk!!_ ” Oh fuck, he was trying to kill him! Grimmjow’s restraining arms tightened reflexively to the point of pain and just beyond it. Ichigo felt his ribs actually creak with the pressure. Was this what people felt when they were being suffocated by giant snakes? Gasping a little, he tried to take enough of a breath to yell for help before his ribcage broke into shards of bone.

And then as quickly as Grimmjow had squeezed, he loosened his grip. Not by much, but the pain receded. Then a heavy head dropped down onto his shoulder, buried warmly against the side of his neck. The crushing force of arms across his chest rearranged themselves into more of what it had probably been intended as all along: a hug.

Grimmjow was hugging him.

For a moment all Ichigo could do was stand there in the moment. He might have said his name; it was hard to focus around the reeling discovery that Grimmjow wasn’t angry. That for the first time since Urahara’s dumb request, Grimmjow was the one who had reached out to _him_ for affection. Clumsy, too-tight and unspeakably dear, Grimmjow was trying his best to hug him in a way that had mirrored the times he’d received one.

What defense did Ichigo have against that? Tipping his head slightly until it rested against Grimmjow’s, he reached up blindly with his hand until he could slide his fingers through his hair, rubbing a little to let him know without words that it was okay. Truthfully, Ichigo didn’t know if he had enough air to actually speak. Grimmjow was gripping him pretty hard. Ichigo also knew he’d willingly suffocate and die before he ever asked him to let go.

So he covered Grimmjow’s hand with his free one and petted his hair, turning the weight of his head down onto Grimmjow’s in the silence. The face smushed into his shoulder and neck was almost panting hot air against his sweater. Was he nervous?

“Before, that wasn’t what I meant to fuckin’ say. I got it backwards.” The sensation of Grimmjow’s mouth moving against his body, even through a layer of clothing raised goosebumps all across Ichigo’s skin. “You’re my only choice because I don’t want to do this to anyone else. But you’re just doin’ this for Kisuke and I feel like shit about it.”

“You feel like shit?” Ichigo repeated, his voice strained. His heart had to be hammering hard enough for Grimmjow to feel. He felt a short nod against his neck.

“Guess I got attached to you real quick. Again.” A long exhale burned Ichigo’s skin. “Didn’t mean to be such an asshole to you, so I should probably head off. I fucked this up.” For all his alarming words about leaving, his arms didn’t loosen an inch. Ichigo turned his head as far as he could and squashed his cheek against Grimmjow’s head.

“I was going to steal you from Urahara,” Ichigo confessed, feeling sheepish. Grimmjow stopped breathing altogether. “I realised they were just hassling you over there and being dicks, and I guess I liked what we were doing. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but nobody really touches me either. Or I mean, I don’t really let them.” Swallowing a little, thinking hard for a moment, Ichigo said something he’d never told anyone before. “I kind of always had this fear since I was a kid that if I let the universe know I really gave a shit about someone, that it’d come and steal them away again. I haven’t hugged anyone this much since my mom was alive. So now who’s got issues?”

The need to turn around and see Grimmjow’s face was too strong, but breaking the hug was out of the question. So Ichigo simply stood there feeling lame and awkward for a while, right up until Grimmjow lifted his head so his mouth was closer to his ear.

“So you want the universe to steal me?”

Ichigo smiled. “I think you’re the only person who’d tell the universe to fuck off, you’re not going anywhere.”

“Huh. Good call.” The hard band around Ichigo’s chest fell away, letting him pull in a cool lungful of air and finally turn around. Grimmjow looked unexpectedly rumpled until Ichigo remembered he’d messed up all his hair. Without reprisal, either. There was something painfully hesitant in his expression. His eyes kept sliding away and returning, like he was too uncomfortable to look him in the eye for long. “I can’t keep sleeping on your floor, Kurosaki.”

“Okay,” Ichigo said agreeably. “You can sleep in my bed.” Grimmjow only scowled.

“I’m not kicking you out of your bed, dipshit.”

“I wasn’t offering to leave it.”

“Yeah well—” The implication set in instantly and Grimmjow’s eyes widened further than Ichigo had ever seen them before. It sort of made the hand-shaking adrenaline pumping through his body a bit gratifying rather than terrifying. “But your bed’s too small. We’d have to,” Grimmjow nervously scanned everything in the room and came back to Ichigo’s faux-innocent expression, “we’d have to hug all night.”

“Yeah.”

“You’ll get too hot.”

“I have air conditioning.”

“I’ll get too hot.”

“You hate being cold more, right?” Ichigo countered. With every exchange Grimmjow’s face was turning as pink as if he’d just escaped one of his blisteringly hot showers. “Besides, it doesn’t have to be hugging all night. There’s this thing called spooning, too.” Ichigo scratched his neck a little. “I don’t think you’re ready for it though. It’s pretty advanced.”

“More advanced than a kiss?” Grimmjow asked, and Ichigo promptly lost his grip on reality. “Because I want to do that.”

“To me?” Was that a squeak in his voice? What had been in that manga?

“Yeah. My mask won’t get in the way much if I tilt my head a bit.”

“Well, I mean, I guess we can do it, but—” Maybe patience wasn’t Grimmjow’s strong suit after all, Ichigo thought dazedly, the warm mouth planted firmly against his own roving with single-minded curiosity—and just a little catch of teeth. Good thing adapting to changing priorities was a skill of his. Lifting his arms, Ichigo ploughed his hands straight into Grimmjow’s hair and yanked his head back for a better angle. The quiet sound Grimmjow made in his throat at the hair-pulling was way too interesting, but he could explore that one later.

All in all, Ichigo would call their impromptu round of exposure therapy a resounding success.

Well, maybe not for Urahara.

But it was about time that guy embraced a little loss.

**Author's Note:**

> so concludes the series! i very much hope you enjoyed it. if you did, a slap of the kudos button is always appreciated 💕
> 
> big thanks to liv for letting me adapt her amazing art into a short series. as usual i took ten years to get to the point 😅 i hope it gave you some entertainment!!


End file.
